Thursday, September 6, 2012

Nova 2012 GT: Round 4

It's a sad day when friends fight. Best friends. Internet best friends. My final opponent for placement was none other than GlanceOnASix of chatbawks fame. We ended up playing 3 times over the weekend, twice in the narrative and once in the GT. He brought his NecroKnights.

Mission was Quarters > Objectives > KPs with Big Guns Never Tire, making Heavy Support scoring for purposes of quarters and worth an extra 50 points for tiebreaker. Dawn of War deployment.

Our lists are very similar, he just has a shootier midfield unit and the canopteks to smash vehicles out of position or mop up units in combat. I figured I could hold up his scarabs with boyz and swamp his GKTs with numbers, while trading firepower and getting the Deathmarks in position to wipe out an objective camper.

I deployed first, sticking my boyz near the center, A Barges and Kannonz to the left, Zahnny and the rest on the right. He responded by making a strong flank, putting everything but the GKTs on my right corner with the canopteks deployed centrally and the GKTs opposite my A Barges.

I ran everything forward as far as possible, immobilizing a Barge along the way. He stayed back and spawned scarabs, but nothing of note happened. I left my A Barges exposed (unintentionally, but I'll never admit to it) and he got his scarabs into position to make a devastating charge. Unfortunately, he missed by an inch and the Scarabs were at the mercy of da boyz.

After that the game quickly turned into a rout. His charges failed miserably, his reserves never arrived (thanks, Warlord trait!) and my units carved a bloody swath through his army. Notably, my Deathmarks' Scythe took about 10 hits on the chin thanks to Evade and Stealth from Zahndrekh.

The GKTs were simply unable to deal with that many bodies and that many saves coming in from the shootaz and tesla destructors. Beyond that, Spyders and Scarabs aren't capable of taking on anything close to a full strength Ork mob. I have more bodies and more firepower on the board. However, they are capable of getting bogged down in terrain and can be susceptible to getting castled up on. I think playing this game 9 more times would result in a 6/4, 5/5 or 4/6 split. It just happened to roll in my favor this time around.